My coworker asked me if there's any tools that help him monitor and block the sites that his son is going to. The son has a laptop, so my coworker doesn't want to violate his privacy. All home systems are going through a router. So he was asking that are there any way that he can set up his PC to be the server that control in/out traffic as far as blocking certain websites that the son can access without touching the son's computer?

Thanks a lot

 

the router doesn't have filter setup?

 

I was thinking about using the router too. But I don't know if his router is capable of that. He didn't tell me its brand or anything. Plus, he also would like to see what sites and stuff his son has been to and block them. Won't the router only tell you the IP address instead?

 

pretty hard to do without setting up a proxy server between the router and the rest of the network.

of course i'm a networking novice so I could be missing something.

 

I remember that there were couple software made to monitor the LAN traffic and logs all the packets. Also, they'd allow you to block certain sites from being access to/from the LAN.

Well, I'm not a Network guy, so my knowledge is pretty much limited.

 

he'll have to

.block net access for the laptop
.set up proxy server/software
.configure laptop to use proxy server

 

well where would you install that software? just installing it on the dads computer wont do much.

again unless I'm missing something, those types of software (could be talking about a firewall) needs to be installed on a system btween the router and the rest of the network.

 

even then I'll bet the kid would hack into the server and do as he pleases :chuckles:

 

easiest way to do it is find out if the router he has, has the capibility to log sites that are visited, and if it doesnt, get one that has some kind of web filtering software built in. if it's just for home use...i'd get a ZyWALL 2. it's cheap, has web filter. i'm very familiar with it, so i know that it is a decent product...especially for the price. depnding on how much he would want to spend, SonicWall is also a very good product, but costs about twice as much as the zywall.

 

I think that you only have to install on the dad's comp. Since he'd set it up as a server, the software will monitor in/outbound traffics. If the packet list is being set up to initialize certain sites that won't be allowed to pass through, then the kids can't do anything. I've been search but weren't able to find the exact program. There are some, but they're for enterprises and are very expesive.